Montana State Bobcats focusing on utilizing bench depth

BOZEMAN – The Montana State Bobcats women’s basketball team was on a five-game winning streak before losing to Northern Colorado by 15 points on Saturday.

With the season winding down and only seven games left, five being road games, the fatigue of a team can increase, and that was the problem against the Bears. In their 10 Big Sky Conference games, MSU played about 10 Bobcats per outing. But against UNC, Montana State only had significant minutes from seven players, and you could see the effect it had on the team.

“We were wiped out. I think when you’re fresh and you’ve got legs and you’ve got energy, it allows you to crash, allows you to sprint, allows you to space,” said head coach Tricia Binford. “And I think I played some kids too many minutes, I should have utilized the bench more.”

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Now Binford has made the correction and will turn more toward the bench heading into Thursday’s game against Sacramento State.

“It’s this time of year where just having them really ready to go with great energy is the priority, so I gave them an extra day and see if we can bounce back and get those things cleaned up,” Binford said.

She will get a boost in the depth of her team as Laura Pranger is expected to be back this week after missing three games. The freshman is a Swiss Army Knife that can play the center and both forward positions on the court and has averaged 19 minutes per game this season.

Nick Petraccione joined KBZK and KXLF as a sports anchor and reporter in June 2017. He was born and raised in New York and graduated from Syracuse University. Before coming to Montana, he had never been west of Buffalo, N.Y., but he has loved all that Big Sky Country has offered him so far.